Every Room of This Arizona ADU Captures a New View of the Sonoran Desert

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Project Details:

Location: Tucson, Arizona

Architect: HK Associates / @hkassociatesinc

Footprint: 750 square feet

Builder: Israel Lugo-Estrada

Structural Engineer: Harris Engineering Services

Cabinetry Design: Hamilton Design

Photographer: Ema Peter / @emaphotographi

From the Architect: “Casita Obscura is a detached 750-square-foot stand-alone component of a three-phase transformation of a 2,400-square-foot midcentury home. The transformation started as a renovation that took the original home back to its bones to reveal affinities between old and new, and inside and outside, through light, material, and attention to detail. Conceived as a bold yet discrete amenity, Casita Obscura enhances the connection of the original home to its Sonoran Desert setting. It is both a backdrop and a retreat, foregrounding the surrounding landscape and vegetation and underlining the distant horizon.

“Taking its name from the Latin ‘camera obscura’ (meaning dark chamber), Casita Obscura is a lens on the desert. In contrast to the cinematic experience of the main house, with its floor-to-ceiling glass, open floor plan, and panoramic views, Casita Obscura is divided into three distinct spaces: a room for sleeping, a room for bathing, and a room for living. Each of these rooms has a specific aperture to the world: the room for sleeping is focused on the intimacy of the desert foothills and the Catalina Mountains, the room for bathing is defined by a triangular portal to the sky, while the room for living frames a view to the city of Tucson and the distant Santa Rita mountains.

“Clad in dark gray, low-cost, cement-board panels that blend into the shadow play of the desert vegetation, and with a roof that slopes away from the main home, the form of Casita Obscura is disguised, reading as a simple, planar facade. Defined by the rhythms of the cement board modules, this west elevation is marked by a solitary, penetrating opening. Angled from most vantage points, upon approach the darkness of this opening reveals the entrance and inviting view into and through the casita.”